Amity
by everambling
Summary: Riddle learns the perfidiousness of Alchemy. Hermione takes drastic measures to keep her secrets to herself. Abraxas makes all the wrong choices. A story about love, perhaps, but not a romance.


**AMITY**

_"Hermione." _

_"Tom?" _

_"We're dead, are we?" _

_"Yes."_

* * *

I

_SHE__ is neither pink nor pale,  
And she never will be all mine;  
She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,  
And her mouth on a valentine._

_**May 1**__**st**__**, 1948**_

They gathered around the Alchemist's cauldron as closely as they could, cloistered by the fumes from the potion. Hermione's face was waxen in the firelight.

The Alchemist tipped the last of the ingredients into the cauldron and hissed through his teeth along with the water.

Hermione drummed her fingers against the table.

"Tonight is Walpurgis night," she said.

The symmetry had stricken Riddle as well. He gave the smallest of nods, eyes fixed on the cauldron. The Alchemist, who was not inured to Hermione's chatter, hissed again.

The sound stretched on and on into a sibilant crescendo. Something was happening to the potion. Its surface was giving off green and gold sparks. Abruptly, a figure appeared in mid-air over the cauldron with a faint _pop_.

Hermione jumped.

"You?" said Riddle.

_**November 12th, 1945**_

She was always crying, mewling. Like a small cowed animal.

Riddle thought often about killing her. Or at least unburdening her of her tongue. But there was still use to be made of Mulciber and his Gringott's vault. Black's gold was tied up in land holdings and marriage contracts. Lestrange and Malfoy's fortunes were in their fathers' hands. But Mulciber was an orphan of the Grindelwald scourge, and his wealth was his own.

There was a lesson in it, which was never to allow any of his cohort to engage in an Unbreakable Vow again.

Taking note of the pallid look about her that announced starvation, Riddle vanished the bars of her cage and approached.

"Three turns should do it," she muttered. That was the delirium. She slid in and out of reality. "Don't be seen. Three turns."

"I'm here to kill you, Miss Clearwater," Riddle announced softly.

"No you aren't."

"Quiet." He said it sharply, too sharply.

"Don't be seen."

"You take me for a liar, do you, Miss Clearwater?"

"I don't die," she muttered, stroking the grooves in the stone wall behind her absently.

"You overvalue your friend Mulciber. I would kill him in an instant. If it suited me."

"No."

"_No?_"

"Mulciber doesn't die. Not yet." Her head drooped forward. "Three turns."

She was bleeding. A gash above her left eye, her eyebrow matted with blood. Riddle cast an impatient healing spell, uninterested in seeing her waste away from infection. All this would have been much easier were she not already mad; then he could have tricked names and dates out of her easily enough.

"You would prefer accommodations upstairs, I think," Riddle tried. "A room with a bed."

She opened her mouth and screamed.

"I'll take that to mean _no_."

"_Don't be seen!_" she insisted.

"I can assure you I am only seen when I mean to be."

Neither wheedling nor threats had ever worked before. Riddle resolved not to try again. She would rot, or she would talk, or Mulciber would be killed in a tavern duel and save them all a lot of trouble.

"Good evening," Riddle said, conjuring the steel bars back in place.

"I'm here to kill you," she said abruptly, in a startling imitation of his own voice. Riddle's fingers twitched against his wand. She cackled, a quiet hiss through dry lips.

"You're hardly the first," he said, walking away from her.

**_June 25th, 1945 _**

On his last day at Hogwarts, Tom Riddle executed a flawless checkmate. He beat Annabelle Pankhurst, Ravenclaw Head Girl, in nine moves. Abraxas leaned back against a pillar of Slughorn's office, cheering with the others. His eyes never left Riddle.

The end-of-term chess match between the Head Boy and Girl was a tradition of Slughorn's dating back several decades. Never before had there been such a spectacular victory.

"Well done, m'boy!" boomed Slughorn, breathing down Riddle's neck, fetid wine and smoke. "And Miss Pankhurst too, a worthy opponent. But no match, I'm afraid! Well, well, I daresay this chess set has seen no finer match since it was in the hands of its original owner."

"Its original owner, sir?"

"Yes, yes, this set belonged to Merlin himself, surely I've mentioned it? A very valuable artifact. Given to me by Blishwick—Harland Blishwick, you know, owner of every rare bookshop in the British Isles."

Riddle continued to feign polite interest. Merlin's chess set: Slughorn had made such extravagant claims before to bolster his image. There had to be some way to verify it. In the time intervening, Riddle had an engagement.

"Sir," he said, bowing his head to Slughorn

(_"Sir," says Mrs Cole, bowing her head to the man with the briefcase who lands every year to investigate Wool's, and the man's eyes glitter meanly, and Mrs Cole closes the door so Tom will not see what she has to do to keep the orphanage open, but Tom can see through the door if he wishes and he hates the man and he hates Mrs Cole_-)

before leaving. Slughorn patted his shoulder affectionately and Riddle clamped down on the urge to slice his hand from his wrist.

On the long walk from Slughorn's study to the dungeons, Riddle detoured through the Transfiguration wing to chastise a pair of curfew-breakers, and in passing observed a strange scene through Dumbledore's office door, which stood ajar.

"She looks a fright. How did you say she came to be in your office, Dumbledore?"

"I rather think she walked in, Headmaster."

Dumbledore and Dippet were standing over a chalk-white waif of a girl curled up on her side on the floor. She stirred a little, and Dumbledore's gaze sharpened while Dippet mopped his brow. "I say. This simply isn't—Young women appearing half dead on school grounds... It simply makes no sense at all, Dumbledore!"

"And yet senseless situations have the temerity to arise every day. I suggest we concern ourselves with her well-being, Armando, until such a time as she is in a state to tell us more about herself."

Dippet had not seen it. Dumbledore certainly had, and Tom, from his position in the corridor, had spotted it too. But Dippet remained oblivious. There was a stiff violet ribbon around the girl's neck, disappearing beneath the soiled collar of her robes. It was inlaid with gold thread in the pattern of a curlicued _M_, but not the traditional _M_ of the Ministry.

The girl was wearing an Order of Merlin, First Class medal.

"I'll trust you to—to take the matter in hand then, shall I, Dumbledore?" said Dippet, already backing out of the room. "I have duties to attend to. Graduation. Ah, Tom, you're here, are you? Good, good."

Dippet smiled approvingly at Riddle on his way down the corridor. It was the same smile he had worn when he had told Riddle to come back in a few years, dear boy, when you're a little older, a little riper, and I'll be happy to give you a fair go at the Defense post.

Riddle smiled warmly back. In the study, Dumbledore had knelt over the girl.

"You can come in, Tom."

Riddle entered the study in time to find Dumbledore's eyes widening over the Order of Merlin medal, which he had removed from around the inert girl's neck. The Transfiguration master tucked the medal away into a fold of his robes and straightened up.

"Is something the matter, sir?"

"Aside from the obvious, no," said Dumbledore, looking sadly over the girl's injuries. She had bushy hair and plain features, and a whole lot of blood caked along her hairline. She bore no striking resemblance to any of the Pureblood families whose company Riddle entertained. If he had to guess, Riddle would have said she was a Half-Blood.

"What was on that medal she was wearing?" he asked.

"Nothing of particular interest," said Dumbledore.

Order of Merlin medals were engraved with a name, rank, and most importantly, a date. What Dumbledore had seen of the latter had caused him some shock. Riddle stood face to face with the old man for some time, contemplating his future. He could not wheedle or demand the truth from Dumbledore, as he could from nearly anyone else. This was why the tombstone bearing Dumbledore's name was most vivid in Riddle's mind. Some day, soon enough, an oblong protrusion of cold stone would be

("_Be just and fear not," reads the headstone above the faded name Thomas J. Riddle and not a word about a wife or son and Tom stares at it impassively because the dead do not rate sentiment of any sort so he just stares for hours and hours and hours_—)

the only trace of Dumbledore left anywhere.

"Very good, sir," said Riddle. "Should I send for the Matron?"

"She has no need of the Hospital Wing," Dumbledore replied, which could not have been further from the truth. The girl's left eye was a mass of swollen, bloodied tissue. "But if you would be so kind as to have Peeves summoned here, please."

"Peeves, sir?"

"Yes, quite. In this matter, his particular skill-set will be of use."

"Yes, sir."

Riddle turned on his heel. He had already decided to take charge of the girl, at the proper moment. There was little that went on at Hogwarts that he was not aware of. Curiosity devoured him, but he had an appointment to keep. By the time he had reached the dungeons, Riddle had mentally reviewed every possible connection between Poltergeists and the unidentified girl, and concluded that Dumbledore's senility was impeding his ability to distinguish between wit and nonsense. No matter. It was a task for later.

"You're all here, hanging on to punctuality by the skin of your teeth," said Riddle to the boys wandering in by twos and threes. "In the future, when I call a meeting, you will be early."

A ripple of pleased apprehension passed through the room. All of them still thought they were play-acting. They still saw their Head Boy as an entertaining novelty.

"Abraxas," said Riddle, "Dumbledore wants Peeves summoned to his study. Go. Now."

Abraxas left at once. He had no need of the show Riddle was about to put on for the others. His loyalty was assured.

Riddle lifted his wand and flicked it at Wendell Jugson.

"_Crucio!_"

Jugson collapsed in a fit of screams and spasms.

"You walked in last tonight, Jugson," said Riddle. "You won't do that again, will you?"

The room's occupants had gone deadly still, all but Jugson, who gasped for breath. Riddle had never raised his wand against one of their own before.

"Will you?"

Jugson mustered the will to shake his head, and Riddle lifted the curse.

"Each of you signed your name on a piece of parchment I presented to you at the start of term," Riddle announced, "such that you'd never reveal the identity of anyone else who signed it, and in exchange, you all would be the first to own a stake in the new order once our plans for the filth are complete."

Jugson crawled back into line, ignored by all.

"That parchment carries a rare curse. If any of you speaks my given name to an outsider from this moment forth, the marks on your arms will burn, and you will be called upon to explain to your comrades why you've made it my sad duty to punish every one of them by your fault. You may not leave this engagement. Beginning today, you may not move, you may not act, without my approval."

"What marks on our arms?" asked Lestrange, keeping his eyes fixed on the floor.

Riddle smiled. "Step forward."

On his last day at Hogwarts, Tom Riddle executed a flawless checkmate.

_**March 8th, 1946**_

The barroom was overcrowded with wizards and witches whose eyes, without fail, darted over to Riddle every few minutes. Abraxas had been intercepted at the bar by a pair of hangers-on eager to court Malfoy gold. Hepzibah Smith pinched Riddle's cheek, exhaling sherry and hiccoughing a little.

"You know, the rumors about you have grown quite fanciful, Tom!"

Granger sniffed.

"Something the matter, girl?" inquired Hepzibah frostily.

"No."

"I don't know why you must bring her along, Tom," Hepzibah complained. "You see how people stare?"

Riddle saw. It was precisely why he took Granger with him on such outings. The fickle public imagination rapidly turned from the tall young man in a hooded cloak to the bedraggled oddity following in his wake, and Riddle remained invisible.

"The _rumors_," Hepzibah insisted. "People are saying that you've been very naughty, Tom. Dippet's favourite turned dashing outlaw."

"I cannot be responsible for the tales people tell," said Riddle quietly. "I only wish to do my work and be left in peace."

At this Granger actually cracked a smile. Hepzibah missed it.

"You do run on

(_Amy Benson runs up and down corridors and through playrooms chasing mice or motes of sunlight or other children and isn't special at all, in fact she's less than nothing special, she makes the world duller with every breath she takes and one day she will have little scampering unremarkable children who she will coddle as though they deserve better than to be stamped into dust and Tom sees every details of this dull old life mapped out wickedly in Amy's smile which is a wicked smile_—)

Tom, but I know you better than you think," Hepzibah simpered. "This old mind's still sharp as a tack. You've got big plans, I can tell. That chess piece you asked me about, for instance. I did look it up. It _was_ from Merlin's own set. Fancy that! Merlin's!"

"Fancy that." Riddle gave her half a smile. Granger was listening more attentively now.

"But of course it won't work for you. Shame."

"Won't it?"

"No, no." Hepzibah shook her head. "The enchantments on Merlin's chess set are the stuff of legend. He had them crafted by a score of Alchemists, a lost art, alas. Have I told you about that old beau of mine, who was an Alchemist, Tom? Surely I have."

"No."

"You really ought to meet him, though he tells the most sordid stories about me. The tricks we got up to, he and I!"

"Yes," said Riddle, "I ought."

**_November 27th, 1945 _**

Riddle was there when she woke up. He had caught Lestrange and Rowle taunting her trough the bars one evening. Neither had fully recovered from their punishment yet, and Riddle had taken to drifting down to the cellar on occasion, roused from sleep by some premonitory urgency he could not explain. The girl's mental state was deteriorating. She was becoming an obsession, his sense being always that he would find the solution soon, tomorrow, the next day, if he applied himself. There was no such thing as an insurmountable obstacle for Lord Voldemort.

At half past eleven in the evening, she sat bolt upright on the floor of her cell. As soon as she opened her eyes, Riddle knew that things were different. Their customary look of vagueness had gone, replaced by fear, the look Riddle knew best of all.

"Your dinner," he said, conjuring a tray from the kitchen. It was an elf's duty, but he wanted to gauge her reaction.

She looked at him, at the bars, at the tray, and blurted, "I—Don't... don't be seen." Again, with more conviction. "Don't be seen."

Riddle felt a novel spark of satisfaction. It was not often he came across such presence of mind. It was obvious from the way she moved that the girl was no longer afflicted with insanity. Yet she was immediately choosing to affect madness in an attempt to buy herself time.

"Spare yourself the effort, Miss Clearwater. And, as I suspect that isn't your name at all, we'll begin there."

"Th—three turns."

"I think not," Riddle said. "I'm going to count to three. If, on three, you have not told me your name, you will lose a finger. When you have no more fingers, we'll move on to your teeth."

There was a silence.

"One."

"This doesn't happen," she muttered. "It can't."

"Two."

"My Lord."

Riddle stopped counting. The girl's expression had changed to one of steely determination.

"My Lord," she repeated, "I'm not your enemy, I'm only afraid. I'll tell you all you want to know. I've heard such stories about you..."

Riddle heaved an internal breath of anticipation. He had considered the idea that she might be one of the crazed Pureblood fans, a pauper from the countryside with nothing to offer but shrill devotion and madness. There was no shortage of them. It would explain the way she kept cropping up, but not the Order of Merlin or Dumbledore's interest in her.

He had also entertained, briefly, a bizarre notion. The date on the Order of Merlin medal which Dumbledore refused to reveal, and the girl's panic at the sight of Riddle himself, had prompted Riddle to wonder whether she might be a traveler from some distant future when time-travel magic existed. But that was absurd for one simple reason. Worthless stock like hers, of impure blood, did not exist in Riddle's future. At the very least, he did not allow them access to magic.

Now, at last, he would get his answer.

"I'm not an Occlumens, My Lord," she said. "Rather than waste your time listening to my story, wouldn't you rather see it for yourself?"

Riddle vanished her bars at once and dragged her to her feet. He placed his hands at either side of her face, holding his wand against her temple. Legilimency was a skill he had acquired recently, but already none equaled him in it.

The girl was trembling. Riddle was too eager to feel bothered by the hand she raised to touch his own. He delved into her mind and for a fraction of a second was overwhelmed by a jumbled flash of images of a very young girl learning how to read a book of fairy-tales in a yellow room. Her name was Hermione. Hermione Granger. She had two friends for whom she would have laid down her life and a cat and—

And then the girl's fingers tightened around his and he knew what was happening instantly, but was too late to stop it.

"_Obliviate_," she whispered.

Riddle felt her spell move through his wand—_his_ wand! It blotted out the stream of images in an instant, and the girl's eyes grew unfocused once more. There was nothing there at all.

"How _dare_ you?" Riddle hissed, wrenching his hand from her slackened grip.

"I don't—I'm sorry but I don't know what you mean. Would you mind telling me where I am?"

"This will cost you, girl!"

She—Granger, her name was Granger—retreated in alarm. "Wait! I don't know what I've done to offend you! I can't solve anything if I don't know what the problem is."

Riddle raised his wand, a killing curse on the tip of his tongue. Only... there were ways of recovering lost memories. Even expertly concealed, memories had a way of surfacing under pressure.

But he knew without trying that it was no use. This was the purest form of Obliviation, cast to perfection. She had wanted so badly to hide her life from him that she had reduced it to oblivion. There was nothing to be recovered.

"I don't know what you want from me," she said shakily, "but you won't get it if you kill me."

Over several minutes and by increments, Riddle lowered his wand. A Cruciatus curse was boiling inside him, yet the girl was right. Her mind at present was empty but intact. Breaking it would accomplish nothing. He confronted the notion that if he began to torture her, he might not stop in time.

Instead he summoned Mulciber, who was at the root of the problem, having allowed himself to be tricked into an Unbreakable Vow with this Hermione Granger. The girl paled in mute terror as Riddle punished Mulciber. She tried to stop him many times, foolishly wandless as she was, so Riddle put her in Mulciber's room and locked her up for the time being. He put Mulciber in the cage. It had a pleasing symmetry.

He would simply have to find a way to retrieve the girl's memories. There had to be some potion or incantation somewhere in the Black family library. He worked at it for much of the next day, and all through the night. And the next day. And the next.

_**May 1st, 1947**_

Riddle stumbled through the Grimmauld fireplace and sprawled face down on the floor.

Blood in his mouth. His limbs would not follow his command. He lay helpless, half in the hearth and half out.

Worse, the incantation had not taken.

The first time he had successfully created a Horcrux, in the summer between his fifth and sixth years at Hogwarts, had been the only time in his life that Riddle had taken ill. Feverish, delirious, he had stayed late in the village and hid in a copse of trees, vomiting and shivering. The orphanage had sent someone out to search for him. Riddle had heard his name being called impatiently, once, twice, then no more.

He had kept himself conscious all through that night by sheer force of will. At dawn he had crept to his bed

(_Lying in his bed on his first ever night at Hogwarts Tom feels the weight of dead people piling on top of him and knows that they are crawling through his blood, these dull worthless parents and grandparents without faces, that they are trying to leech his magic from him because they have none and if they succeed and grow fat and burst through his skin then there will be nothing left of Tom but another corpse on the growing pile, so instead he must starve them_—)

in the second floor dormitory. There he had remained for more than a week.

The pain was unimaginable. Riddle had never been averse to pain. In practical fact, however, it had almost caused him to bite clean through his own tongue. A fortnight later, on the Hogwarts Express, Abraxas had stopped dead in front of Riddle and stared at the newfound gauntness, the bruises under his eyes. In an empty compartment he had kissed Riddle's temples and run his hands frantically over his face, a killing light in his eyes.

Riddle had let him think that his condition was a result of some twisted Muggle experiment, as this suited both their purposes. Abraxas was loyal, moderately clever, and very easily motivated. He rated perhaps a cut above the rest of his cohort. But he no more inspired confidence than anyone of the others.

Wishing to avoid another episode of delirium in the middle of term, Riddle had kept his grandfather's ring safe alongside the Diary that was his most prized secret. Once he had left school for good, he had set out to create his second Horcrux, thinking the process would be easier the second time around.

Instead, it had been much, much harder.

He had convulsed to the point of dislocating a shoulder. Blood had run from his ears. Abraxas had wept in fear at the sight of him. Yet for all this, his efforts had been in vain. Marvolo's ring had remained but a ring.

So Riddle had prepared himself extensively for a fresh attempt. He had strengthened his magic, taken potions, studied Legilimency exhaustively. Certainly, this time would prove a success. There were no insurmountable obstacles for Lord Voldemort. His next treasure would be the chess piece, and then Hepzibah's heirlooms...

At present, Riddle fisted his hands into the ancient rug and dragged himself out of the fireplace inch by inch. There was no question of being found in this position by Lestrange or Black. He would have to find some way to cease retching and summon an elf.

Hands seized him by the shoulders and turned him onto his back. The world pitched and rolled. Riddle immediately forced his hand to move into his pocket and tighten around his wand. The effort left him rigid with pain.

"If you won't let me borrow your wand to levitate you upstairs, this is going to be unpleasant," said Hermione.

When he gave no answer, she reached under his arms and began to pull him towards the first landing corridor.

Riddle screamed.

It was the first time he could recall screaming, in pain or anger or any affliction. Rage blinded him.

Hermione could easily have summoned an elf rather than submitting them both to this indignity. Riddle thought he recalled, vaguely, a look of distaste coming over her face when he or Black summoned the elves. Perhaps she was afraid of them.

At last they reached the end of the corridor. The room at the end was Riddle's, and the door was locked. He had no illusions about his ability to remove the spell sealing the door at the moment. But, to his severe alarm, the door sprang open for Hermione.

"I'm glad that happened," she muttered, hauling him inside. "I only wish I could call it up whenever I needed it."

She sat him up against the bed and handed him a leather belt from the closet.

"Bite down on this," she said. Seeing that Riddle had no intention of taking it, she placed it between his teeth herself.

Riddle lost consciousness for several seconds when she dragged him up onto his bed. When he next became aware of his surroundings, he was glad for the belt.

Hermione was pouring water from a carafe onto a washcloth.

"Your wrist is broken, I think," she said. "You must have just gotten away. I'm surprised you let yourself be overpowered."

Riddle turned over and vomited on his pillow. Hermione took the pillow away.

"It's incredible that no one else is here," she continued. "Even Walburga is out. I could leave you to choke."

In his pocket, Riddle's knuckles tightened around his wand until his nails pierced his palm.

"Of course, there's still magic on all the exits to stop me from leaving, and then there wouldn't be anyone to stop the others from killing me when they returned. They don't like me; Malfoy especially. It's all to do with my blood. They're very odd people, but I suppose they would have to be, to take orders from you. I suppose you know that, too."

In between rattling gasps, Riddle managed to hiss, "Kill… Escape…"

"You'll kill me if I try to escape, will you?" said Hermione coldly. "All right, then. Take out your wand and have done with it."

Riddle tried. Not to kill her—there was still Mulciber to think about—but to give her a scare. He cast a nonverbal curse to set the wardrobe behind her on fire. Nothing happened.

"You haven't got an iota of strength in you," said Hermione. She pressed the washcloth to his forehead. Her eyes drifted to his pocket.

The chandelier above her head exploded, showering them both with shards of glass and silver.

"I still don't suppose I could get your wand away from you, though," she reflected.

Riddle wanted to sleep, but was not prepared to take her at her word. He forced his eyes to remain open while she took a seat at the edge of his bed

(_His bed creaks so Tom opens his eyes and sees a Ravenclaw girl in his year sitting at his feet and she is disrobing and the other boys in the dormitory are laughing, announcing that it is a birthday gift, and Tom considers slashing his wand through the air and constricting their windpipes and watching their faces turn purple but in the end he merely Obliviates them all_—)

and tipped the carafe to his lips.

Riddle drank, and retched, and praised his own foresight at having left the ring in a secure chest under the ruins of the Gaunt shack.

All through the night Hermione sat up by his side, reading in silence and bringing him cold water. Her bedside manner was very different to Abraxas, who had lain in the bed too, watching Riddle like a hawk and warming him with his proximity. If Hermione had done the same, he would not have sent her away. In a sense, she made the exact counterpart to Abraxas. One was as pure as Pureblooded came, and the other was more dirt-veined than a Squib. And Riddle was both of these.

At dawn Hermione closed her book.

"Your fever is gone," she said. "I'm quite tired, so I'll be going."

"The door opened for you," said Riddle hoarsely.

"Yes, I can do magic same as the rest of you. I assume that's why you won't let me have a wand."

Riddle watched her until she relented.

"You wonder why I haven't escaped, if I can make doors pop open for me," she said. "I can't do it all the time. Only when I want it badly enough."

"Never lie to me, Hermione."

"I wasn't. I've nowhere else to go. I have no one to turn to. I see the way you operate, and it makes me sick, but it's obvious you know how to get results. And you seem to want me to get my memories back as badly as I do. So there are advantages to my being here. Besides, I would be afraid of putting anyone I met while escaping in danger from you."

She was lonely. Contemptuously, Riddle sneered.

"And," she added, "I think I know why you're so interested in me. I'd like to find out whether I'm right."

"_Do_ you?" This Riddle did not care for.

She nodded. "There was a device made of wire in my mouth when I lost my memories, at the very back attached to my teeth. For a long time I didn't feel it or notice it was there. It seems to have been bolted there somehow, to keep my teeth straight. Only teeth should be easy enough to fix by magic, so this must have been a Muggle device. It's very intricate. There's even some minuscule writing on it. It was loose, though, so it started to bother me. I had a lot of injuries when I lost my past, so it must have been knocked out somehow. I managed to pry it out. My name is written on it."

Riddle watched her eyes closely to see whether she was lying, and determined that she was not.

Her brow furrowed. "Something that could be a date of birth is on it too."

Riddle though of the Order of Merlin Dumbledore had taken from her neck, and the expression on Dumbledore's face when he had read its engraving. Hermione was looking at him intently, evaluating the impact of her story. They shared a moment of silent understanding.

"I want you to know," she said, "that if my theory is correct, I'm not going to tell you one thing you want to know. I'm not going to use my position to help you, once my memories come back. In fact, I think there's a good chance I could have done away with them myself, to keep them from you. So you know what I'm willing to do. You'll have to kill me."

"It would be my pleasure."

She looked away from him. "Not before the Alchemist is done with us."

**_July 3d, 1945_**

Abraxas behaved impossibly about the girl.

"What's important about her?" he asked many more times than necessary.

"In seven years, you've never made the mistake of second-guessing me," said Riddle.

"In seven years, you haven't often seemed as perturbed as you are by this girl."

Riddle did not speak or move. He gave Abraxas a mild look.

"I'm sorry, My Lord," said Abraxas at once.

They stood in the vestibule of the House of Black at Grimmauld Place, watching the four other Knights—the name Knights of Walpurgis had been an invention of Abraxas, whose penchant for style over subtlety sometimes had its merits—scurry about the place like woodlice, dueling one another for the best rooms. Most of Riddle's followers were to live at home with their families. There they would remain until their guardians had the courtesy to die and pass along their gold. Lestrange, Mulciber, and Rowle, however, were among those Riddle wished to keep under close watch, whether for their potential or their ineptitude. The House of Black was an ideal headquarters. Malfoy Manor was grander, but its keepers were alive and well, whereas only a month past the eldest Black had been institutionalized with dementia, or Dragonpox, leaving his son Orion in possession of the estate. Orion's first cousin Walburga was a part of the inheritance. Generally she kept out of their way, attending to tasks too delicate for the elves. She and Orion hated one another passionately, and were engaged to be married. All together, their estate thus comprised half a dozen residents, and Abraxas as a frequent lodger. Black, though he owned the house, was explicitly subordinate to Riddle.

"Go issue instruction to the elves for the evening," Riddle said.

Abraxas complied. Evenings alongside the young and very wealthy company Riddle collected often involved drinks, followed by still more drinks. The activity served its purpose. An effective following was best maintained by applying pressure, then allowing some small form of release. Night after night, Riddle returned from the Knockturn shop where his talents were drastically underutilized to find Lestrange and Black in the smoking room, Ogden's Old in hand, gambling away their inheritance. Rowle and Mulciber would join while Black would saunter off to grope Walburga without affection. Abraxas would sit up late into the night, waiting for something that never materialized.

Night after night, Riddle exercised patience, which was one of his great tricks. Patience came to his aid in Burke's shop, in Hepzibah Smith's perfumed manor, in the parlors of the wealthy and connected.

But patience got him no closer to discovering what had become of the girl with the Order of Merlin.

On the morning of the graduates' departure from Hogwarts, Riddle had risen early to seat himself near Dippet at breakfast.

"I hope the unfortunate girl who turned up in the night has taken a turn for the better?" he had asked.

"I'm afraid not!" Dippet had exclaimed over a plate of kippers. "Sad, sad business. Dumbledore brought me the news not half an hour ago. The girl passed on in the night. No trace of a family or anything of the sort. Muggleborn, too, according to Dumbledore. Never even got her name. She'll be buried in an unmarked grave."

Riddle had left the table feeling murderous, and very much wrong-footed. Dumbledore was lying through his teeth. There had been nothing to indicate that the girl was in mortal danger. She was alive, he had been certain of it. As for her being Muggleborn, it was lamentable, but did not erase the mystery she posed.

He had cornered Peeves and used every spell in his arsenal to wrest information from him. The Poltergeist had pleaded ignorance. Perhaps Dumbledore really had lost his mind.

A fortnight had passed, and another. Riddle had instructed Mulciber to scour the archives of every independent magical library in the country, to no avail. Next, they had searched the cemeteries.

In the first week of August, out of nowhere, she turned up.

Mulciber and Black stumbled into the vestibule covered in blood, clutching an unconscious rag doll of a girl with a faint pulse and a broken nose.

"Explain," said Riddle.

"It's her!" crowed Black. "It's the bird you've been looking to find since we left school. Dumbledore's secret ward—"

"He's been keeping her hidden," Mulciber interrupted. "But he takes pity and lets her out sometimes and she got into a scrape with some Aurors that were raiding a Mudblood flat in Diagon, right—"

"How have you learned all this?"

"Forced some truth serum down her throat," Black explained.

Riddle nodded. "Continue."

Black and Mulciber looked uneasy.

"Well?"

"Well, see, the serum was Ludwell's so it was mostly water, didn't last long," said Mulciber.

"So we thought we'd just bring her back here and let you handle her, but she said she'd go turncoat and give us loads of Dumbledore's secrets if we'd just guarantee her safety and we thought—so we thought we'd just do it right then—"

"And she asked for—Well, we thought, an Unbreakable Vow in exchange for all the dirt on Dumbledore…"

Mulciber fell silent, cowed by Riddle's rage.

"We, er, none of us here can harm her, or Mulciber's Vow is broken," said Black quietly.

"Then we simply use another truth serum," Riddle heard himself say. The girl on the floor was beginning to wake. She was shivering.

Mulciber winced. "We did."

"_And?_"

"She took this potion. After the Vow. Pulled it out of her pocket saying it was something to do with Dumbledore, only she drank it and went funny."

"It was draught of insanity," said Black. "She must have been keeping it on her in case she was captured, so she couldn't be made to talk. She just spouts nonsense now. Doesn't know where she is or anything."

Riddle looked at the girl more closely. She was not shivering at all. She was laughing.

* * *

II

_SHE__ has more hair than she needs;  
In the sun 'tis a woe to me!  
And her voice is a string of colored beads,  
Or steps leading into the sea._

**_May 6th, 1946_**

The Alchemist's repair was, in generous terms, a run-down shack. It reminded Riddle of the Gaunt hovel.

"He keeps excellent Firewhiskey," had been Hepzibah's only comment.

There was no point in wondering whether he had gotten the address wrong. He had gotten it right. Granger disappeared into the adjoining room, looking all about her in distaste. With each step she took clouds of dust rose from the floorboards.

Riddle began to inspect the room inch by inch. He tapped his wand against every surface. There had to be some kind of secret passageway. Hepzibah did not frequent hovels like these.

Granger poked her head back inside the room.

"Over here," she said. "A staircase opens up behind the wall if you open the fourteenth book in the bookcase."

Riddle followed her to the top of a staircase that descended into shadow.

"Fourteen. Bridget Wenlock's Fourteen Principles of Opposition to the Alchemical Magicks," said Riddle quietly. Granger must have read Black's books on the subject.

"As passwords go, it's rather childish," said Granger.

Riddle led the way down the tenebrous passage, counting a hundred and twelve steps before they halted in front of a wrought-iron door.

The door opened at once, revealing a shrunken man with grey whiskers in a garish tweed cloak.

"Tom Riddle and friend," greeted the man. "We have been waiting."

Riddle had taken care to arrive an hour early. He and Granger followed their host through a cramped vestibule into an even more tightly cramped dungeon, filled from floor to ceiling with teetering piles of parchment, brass scales, and jars of shimmering powder. They were the only three people present. Evidently, Dumbledore was not alone in favoring eccentricity as a means of deflection.

"Hepzibah will have told you that I take payment upfront," said the Alchemist.

Riddle produced a bag of Mulciber's gold. Abraxas had suggested bringing a bag of lead instead, smiling wryly.

"I do not shake hands," the Alchemist told them. "I do not flourish a wand and mumble incantations. I do not allow familiars on my premises. I will not always remember your names. I deal in the noble art of Alchemy, greatest of the magical disciplines. That and nothing more."

Riddle nodded once. He handed the Alchemist the chess piece he had stolen from Slughorn.

"This item will not recognize you as its master, correct?" the Alchemist said, examining it from all angles.

"Not yet."

"Merlin's protection was clever. This is why he is Merlin."

Without warning, the Alchemist turned and hissed loudly at a cauldronful of potion sitting in the fireplace at the end of the room. Granger jumped. Riddle reached for his wand.

"The intentions of an elixir," the Alchemist explained, "are not always the same as the intentions of he who brews it."

This was no explanation at all. Riddle reached for his chess piece.

"Do you have a solution for us?"

"That," said the Alchemist, "is a question of what you are willing to do to achieve your goal."

"That will not be a problem."

Granger made a small noise of dissent. The Alchemist paid her no mind.

"Merlin's protection was invoked by three," he said. "You will need three to break it."

The Alchemist made no move to elaborate.

"There are three of us here," Granger pointed out.

"But not the right three. Merlin's bond was built on magic of old. Its seal was enchanted by mother, father, and child. In this way, Merlin assured himself that only those who honored bonds of blood and oath would inherit his property."

"Then find us a family with a child," said Riddle.

"If you wish to be the master, you must be the father, and yours must be the wife and child."

Granger exhaled loudly.

"Is there an alternative?" Riddle asked.

"In Alchemy, always, there are alternatives. A child I can make for you out of dust and clay and wine. A woman, full-grown, will take longer. I must get her just right. Many years, you must wait."

"How long for the child?"

"Eighteen months, once the ingredients are assembled."

"Fine." Riddle looked to Granger. "We'll get married. Today. And you'll have eighteen months exactly to produce this child out of dust."

"I don't—" Granger spluttered.

"If reciting a vow and signing your name on a piece of parchment taxes your abilities, then I've seriously overestimated your value," Riddle told her coldly.

"I—Well… If it's just—"

"Where can we find an officiant?" Riddle asked the Alchemist.

"There is a chapel down the lane from the schoolhouse."

"A _wizarding_ officiant?"

"He officiates many things."

"Very well," said Riddle, already making his way to the door. "You will receive an additional payment to cover the conjuring of the child." He paused. "If you fail, your death will be painful."

The Alchemist nodded agreeably.

Granger's eyes kept darting to Riddle all the way out of the shack and down the road to the village. Her breath misted in the brisk evening air. She radiated agitation.

"Your objections are immaterial to me," Riddle forestalled her at last.

"It's not that," she said. "Why is it so important to you to claim this chess piece? What do you plan to do with it?"

They had arrived at a small chapel with a snow-covered roof. Riddle did not answer, but knocked sharply.

"Enter!" called a voice from within in Russian.

They stepped through the doors and were overwhelmed by the smell of dust and incense. Riddle could not discern the denomination of the establishment, but recognized it as distinctly Muggle. Yet the man standing at the altar worse wizard's robes.

"We wish to be married," Riddle told the man in Russian.

The man looked from Riddle to Granger. His eyes narrowed.

"The girl wishes?" he asked.

"Absolutely," Granger cut in. "Nerve-wracking, isn't it?"

The man continued to look dubious, but beckoned them closer.

"Family and friends?" he inquired.

"It's an… elopement," Hermione muttered in English.

The officiant seemed to understand. He opened a heavy tome and began at once to recite some long-winded sermon, most of which was lost on Riddle. The words passed too quickly. At last, he waved his wand in a rapid circular motion, and two gold wedding bands appeared in mid-air.

Granger's hand shook as Riddle slid the ring onto her finger.

"Say vows," the officiant told her in heavily accented English.

Granger gaped at him.

"_I do_," he supplied.

"I—I do," she stammered.

"I do," said Riddle quietly.

Undeterred by their lack of conviction, the officiant seized their arms and placed them so that they stood hand in hand, with Riddle's hands wrapped around Granger's. Her palms were cool against his. A ribbon of flame snaked from the tip of the officiant's wand and wrapped around their hands, burning them for a moment before disappearing.

"Married," said the man briefly. "Now go."

It was possible he expected the girl's family to burst in angrily and start a brawl. Riddle nodded and left without comment. Hermione followed him at a trot, but outside she halted.

"I'm keeping my name," she said.

"Fine."

"And we'll find someone to dissolve this arrangement once the Alchemist is through."

"I don't care to hear you sound so close to giving orders," said Riddle.

She glared at him and opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it. Riddle prepared himself to Disapparate.

"Is that all?" she burst out. There seemed to be some trepidation in her stance.

"I won't be expecting you in my room later tonight," Riddle told her flatly. "If that's what you're trying not to ask."

She relaxed considerably. "I didn't think… I just…" She lifted her chin. "It's not as though that was your arrangement to decide, anyhow."

"That will be enough."

She huffed. "You're welcome for all this, by the way."

Riddle Disapparated.

_**December 14th, 1945**_

"Why do you carry that?" Granger asked.

"You are not alive so you can ask questions," said Riddle.

He put the chess piece away in his pocket.

"It isn't very stimulating sitting here day after day, watching you study me," she insisted. "I might have a better chance of getting my memories back if I had something to do."

"There are books in this room. Read them."

"I have."

"Read them again."

"You would never play chess with anyone else in this house," Granger said matter-of-factly. "You hate everyone here. So you must have that piece because it's valuable. Did it belong to someone you knew?"

"Miss Granger, perhaps you need further explanation of what is meant when I speak of Unforgiveable curses."

"But it's really obvious that you're not going to hurt me. I've been here for ages and you haven't so much as—"

Riddle placed a silencing charm on her. She sat cross-legged on the floor next to Mulciber's bookcase, her eyes fixed on the wall opposite. Every so often she blinked or moved her ample hair from her face. She made no attempt to communicate nonverbally.

All at once Riddle was consumed by suspicion. He flicked his wand, removing the charm.

"Have you remembered something?" he demanded. He had been attempting a form of Legilimency predating the invention of wands, which was purported to access untested corners of the mind. "What is it? What are you doing?"

"You wanted me to be quiet!" Granger protested.

Riddle stood and closed his book.

"Come with me."

"Where are we going?"

Riddle led the way down to the first landing in silence. At the front door he stopped her.

"You won't escape, of course," he said. "You'd be unwise to try."

He held out his arm. Granger gripped it with some trepidation. They stepped outside and Disapparated with a _crack_.

"That—that was—" Granger fell to her hands and knees on the cobbled ground, retching.

Riddle had brought them to Knockturn in the middle of the night. The rabble was gathering to stare. Many of them looked from Granger to Riddle and whispered, taking steps back.

"In," Riddle commanded, sweeping passers-by with a stare until, one by one, they melted away.

Granger scurried to the entrance of the shop facing them. Riddle flicked his wand to unlock the door, then sealed the lock again once they were inside.

"Borgin & Burke's," said Granger. "This is where you work, isn't it? Why have you brought me here?"

"Haven't you wondered why no one has come looking for you?"

"Maybe they have."

"No," said Riddle. "Had there been anyone, I would have killed them."

Granger's face crumpled in despair. There was disgust in her expression, too.

"Then I'm glad no one came."

Not even Dumbledore. Riddle had expected Dumbledore to launch some foolish campaign to reclaim the girl. He had plotted the ways in which he would outsmart the old man. He had waited. Nothing had come of it.

There had to be someone in the world who could tell him about her.

"Burke's fireplace is of a special sort," said Riddle. "Through some manoeuvering, he's managed to have it connected to every Floo system in existence. There is no household unavailable to this grate. Step inside."

Through her fear, he thought Granger seemed eager. She must have read about Floo powder in one of Mulciber's ill-used schoolbooks.

Riddle stepped into the wide fireplace beside her and handed her some emerald powder.

"What's our destination?" she asked.

"Ask for home."

Her eyes brightened. Riddle did not think she would be so sanguine if she knew his plans. This trip would take them to the home of some unsuspecting Muggles, or it would lead them to Dumbledore's home, which would be warded against them and force them to make a rapid escape. Either way, the result would be unpleasant.

"Home!" Granger called, throwing the powder at their feet.

They spun together, colliding uncomfortably, knocking their elbows against chimneys and glimpsing a patchwork of quiet domestic grates. With a heaving lurch, at last, they landed abruptly in a bed of soot. As Riddle righted himself, his vision adjusted and he felt an instant swell of shock and rage.

They stood in a campfire in the empty shelter next to the watchman's cottage in Hogsmeade station. Here was where first years sometimes warmed themselves around the fire when the boats destined to carry them across the lake needed maintenance.

"Where are we?" Granger asked.

"Hogwarts."

The one place in the world whose protection Burke's fireplace could not violate. So instead of taking them directly to the Great Hall or the Headmaster's grate, the Floo had spat them out as close to their destination as it could manage.

Hogwarts had to be the closest thing Granger had known to a home at the time of her Obliviation.

"This is Hogwarts?" she said, looking around in confusion.

"Some ways north."

Riddle produced some more Floo powder before she could pose more questions, and they were spun away once more.

_**May 1st, 1946**_

Orion and Walburga held their wedding on Walpurgis Night, which was their puerile idea of a clever joke. Too much Firewhiskey was served too early, as was customary of Black family weddings. Riddle deigned to make an appearance for half an hour before retiring to his room. He was roused at half-past three by a knock at his door.

The noise from the festivities had died down. No doubt the entire party were collapsed on the sofas in a drunken stupor. Riddle opened his door to find Granger slumped against the wall, her lip swollen and bleeding.

"What?" he said shortly. Her state was not a welcome sight. She reeked of Firewhiskey. He had expected her to behave differently.

"Malfoy and Black made one of the elves curse me," she slurred. Her head drooped on her shoulder. "And they… made him give me a lot to drink. And they made him curse me. Malfoy and Black."

The elves had not been included in the terms of Granger's Unbreakable Vow with Mulciber. Riddle had a moment of paralyzing wonder that it had not occurred to him before, when it could have made a difference. He might have gotten something out of her, even when she was under the influence of draught of insanity, through the elves.

Now, all that was immaterial. Torture would not bring her memories back. Riddle carried her up to her room and sat her on her bed, closing the door behind them.

"Elves have all kinds of powers," she muttered.

"Why did you come to me?" Riddle could not help asking. It irked him that she was not more fearful.

"You're good at magic. And you don't want me hurt… for some reason."

Riddle waved his wand. Granger winced as the sobering spell hit her. The pain must have been a lot worse without the dulling effects of Firewhiskey. He opened a drawer and found essence of Dittany to apply to her lip. The wound sealed itself at once.

"Nevertheless, I'm your captor," said Riddle.

"I know that, thank you" she snapped, feeling her face gingerly. Riddle brushed her hand away and felt along her jaw himself to see whether it was broken.

"It just so happens that if I could go home—wherever that is—for just one day, and die at the end of it, I'd much rather that than stay here," she went on. "But I haven't got that option. Excuse me for trying to make the best of what little I have."

Her sentimentality was none of his concern. Riddle pressed his thumb against her chin. She gasped in pain.

Riddle healed the fracture with a flick of his wand. He supposed he could have left her injured, but he preferred her intact. In many instances, overall, she had proven an asset.

He set his wand down, still holding her jaw, and out of nowhere she jumped forward and kissed him

(_The first time Malfoy kisses him is in second year and Tom jumps back and hisses in alarm, then curses him to within an inch of his life, and it isn't until later when he realizes how easy it is to motivate Malfoy this way that he allows it and it it feels rather good after a fashion, like emptying his mind for a moment, so he indulges Malfoy again and again_—)

forcefully.

Riddle took hold of her shoulders and pushed her back against the pillows. She gave him a hurt look. Her lip trembled.

"Good Lord," he hissed under his breath, an old curse from Wool's that had gotten his mouth washed out with lye soap.

Granger looked away.

"I told you that I was your captor," Riddle began. "I have no time for your infatuation—"

"You're awfully full of yourself, aren't you?" she said. When he swelled angrily, she rolled her eyes. "Oh, just get out."

Riddle gritted his teeth and conjured a stack of books which he placed on her bedside table.

"Learn Russian," he told her. "We have business in Kiev."

Then he went downstairs to punish Black and Abraxas. It took a long time.

_**January 19th, 1948**_

"I've finished the books," said Hermione.

Riddle ignored her.

"The books you gave me. All of them."

"Your gratitude is overwhelming."

"If you don't want to fetch books for me, you could just take me to a library. I'd like some more books on the divisions of magic between Beasts, Beings, and Spirits, in particular."

"There are hundreds of books in this house."

She wrinkled her nose. "Half of them are testimonials to the magnificence of the Black family or manuals instructing on how to hunt Muggles and Squibs."

Riddle busied himself over his cauldron, in which he was brewing a restorative draught for damaged memories. Hermione did not leave.

"I was curious about Black's elves being so powerful, you see," she said. "Because they don't use their power to leave. They keep doing what everyone here tells them. Did you know there are elves serving magical families _everywhere?_ But they have incredible magic!"

"The elves exist to serve," said Riddle with distaste. He would return her to her room soon and lock the door, he thought.

"It's deplorable that they aren't allowed to use their powers as they like," Hermione insisted. "They can break Disapparition wards and conjure items restricted by Gamp's Laws of Elemental Transfiguration. And Phoenixes and Poltergeists are even more powerful. Poltergeists are the keepers of chaos and they live in castles and fortresses where lots of magical accidents happen. Phoenixes can live for thousands of years! I had to leaf through an entire book about disemboweling Centaurs to find all this out. It would be much better if I could have some school books and things. Could I have a look at your old textbooks? Tom?"

Riddle turned slowly to face her.

"The Mudblood is disrespecting our Lord," said a voice from the doorway before Riddle could speak. Mulciber and Walburga came into view.

"Don't you know your place here, Mudblood?" said Walburga.

"She wants her place to be in the cupboard with the elves, seems to me," said Mulciber, grinning conspiringly at Riddle. "Would that suit you, Mudblood? Grubbing on the floor with the elves?"

Hermione had gone rigid. She had no wand, or Riddle suspected she would have been casting curses left and right. He folded his arms, somewhat put off by Mulciber's juvenile attitude. Yet this was the way of war. Part of the game involved employing the brutish and undeveloped.

Mulciber snapped his fingers. "Hob!"

A few moments passed. Then, with a _crack_, an aged elf with a squashed nose and watery eyes appeared in their midst.

"You made me wait, Hob," said Mulciber. "You answer immediately to my summons, not only Black's. Is that understood?"

He gave the elf a swift kick in its midsection. It doubled over, apologizing and wheezing.

"Stop!"

Hermione flew at Mulciber, fists raised. Riddle flicked his wand, throwing her against the wall and immobilizing her.

"Everyone will return to their rooms," he said. "Now. And I'll have silence to continue working."

But Mulciber was only half listening. He had gone crimson with indignation.

"You give orders to _me_, Mudblood?" he cried, while Walburga screamed in derision.

"Don't you dare touch that elf!" Hermione spat.

Mulciber hissed and snapped his fingers. The elf sat up. It seemed to understand something from Mulciber's nod, and waved its hand. An arm detached itself from the chandelier and struck Hermione across the face, breaking her nose. And before he knew what he had done, Riddle had taken Mulciber by the throat and thrown him down on the table hard enough to split its surface. He sent the elf a glare, sending it scurrying from the room, and dug his wand point into Mulciber's temple.

Mulciber screamed. Riddle withdrew his wand for a moment and saw that he had produced some form of nonverbal curse. Burn blisters were raising over his skin in several places. Walburga flew, wailing, into the corridor.

"I recall instructing you to leave," said Riddle. "I don't recall asking you to take discipline of prisoners into your own hands."

"I'm s—sorry, my Lord!" Mulciber spluttered.

"That is a refrain I have heard from you often."

Riddle raised his wand.

"Don't!" Hermione burst out. "Don't kill him!"

Holding a sleeve to her nose to mop up the blood, she staggered closer. Riddle healed her injuries and smiled. Rage boiled inside him.

"No?" he said. "Would you like to do it instead?"

She froze. Riddle extended a hand, holding his wand out to her.

"Come closer. Do it yourself, if you will."

She shook her head violently, backing away.

"The next time you issue a command to me," Riddle told her softly, "I _will_ have you do it."

Hermione ran from the room. Glancing after her, Riddle saw that Abraxas had been standing in the shadows behind Walburga, a very ugly look on his face. He looked as though he had swallowed poison.

"Clear this up," Riddle told Mulciber, indicating the mess from the table and the chandelier. "Without the elves."

He left without another word.

_**September 2nd, 1945**_

"Seems Dumbledore bested Grindelwald for good," said Abraxas. "Had you heard? It was on the wireless this morning."

Riddle had heard. He picked up a broken piece of marble from a statue in the Grimmauld gardens. It glowed momentarily blue as he enchanted it into a Portkey.

"So the war is over before it ever really got started," Abraxas went on.

The other war was over, too. The Muggles had reached Armistice. Riddle had heard the latter in passing, while approaching the entrance to Diagon Alley from Muggle London. He expected Abraxas should have cared better to inform himself on the subject had he known the history of his family's gold, which could be traced entirely to Muggle land in the twelfth century and remained entwined with Muggle affairs for more than half a millennium thereafter.

"Grindelwald could no more have led a successful war with a hundred armies," said Riddle.

"Still, he had the right idea, doing away with the Mudbloods and all."

"A thousand before him have had the same idea. The idea is irrelevant if the execution is imperfect."

The Portkey glowed blue again. Riddle and Abraxas took hold of it and were swept up, spinning faster and faster, until they landed directly outside the gates of the Hogwarts grounds.

"Shall we Apparate to the greenhouses and steal our way in from there?" asked Abraxas.

"There is no Apparating in or out of Hogwarts grounds," said Riddle shortly.

"Then how—"

"You're here to pay your respects to your old Potions master. Slughorn lost a nephew to Grindelwald a few months ago. You were in the area looking in on a family stake in the Three Broomsticks and thought you'd stop in. Make sure Slughorn drinks at least two pints. He'll be holding his start-of-term dinner party for the returning students, so you'll find him in his study. When he's had enough to drink, undo the wards on his trunk, the one in his chambers. The password is Cassiopeia. Bring me the white King from Merlin's chess set. Arrange for a fourth-year to look responsible. An owl should reach Pringle any moment now, informing him that someone is waiting at the front gate."

"And what are you doing?"

"I'll be here. Waiting."

Abraxas smiled.

Riddle Disillusioned himself as the caretaker came into view to open the gates. The plan was solid enough that he could have carried it out himself, but he wanted a layer of distance between himself and the theft, just in case.

He waited four and three-quarter hours. At last Abraxas returned. A swagger to his walk indicated that he had succeeded, and that he had indulged in some of Slughorn's mead himself.

"Well done," said Riddle, pocketing the chess piece.

Abraxas pushed him up against a tree and buried his face in Riddle's neck. He reached for the buckle on his belt. He must have had a great deal to drink. Riddle humored him, counting down from ten in his head to avoid losing focus before stepping aside and smoothing down his hair.

Abraxas licked his lips.

"My Lord…"

"Let's first return to London." Grindelwald was defeated, and Riddle had his newest prize. But the sight of Hogwarts so close by set him on edge.

Abraxas nodded. Riddle conjured a book to use as a Portkey.

_**March 24th, 1948**_

He found her reading in the garden.

"I found a book of childrens' stories," she said, setting down a copy of Petra Cadwallader's _Illustrated Tales: The Warlock's Hairy Heart_. "Did you hear these when you were growing up?"

"I grew up in a Muggle orphanage," said Riddle.

"Oh!" She looked taken aback.

"Not what you imagined?"

"It's just that you dislike Muggles so much," said Hermione, frowning, "and yet they raised you. I always thought perhaps you hadn't met many Muggles and didn't really understand them. Were you treated badly as a child?"

"No."

She looked at him curiously. "Why are you here?"

"The Alchemist sends word that he will be finished in a little over a month. I need your measurements. I'm having you a wand made so that you can cast your portion of the counter-charm."

"Didn't I have a wand of my own when you found me?"

"Yes. Black broke it in half when you outsmarted him."

She smiled sadly. "How do you expect me to cast the Alchemist's spell if I've never practiced?"

"That is the other reason I'm here." Riddle handed her a wand. "This is Rowle's. Practice. The incantation will be _Filius quaeso_." There was no need to tell her what would happen if she tried to use the wand against him. She knew.

Hermione held the wand as she would have a priceless artifact.

"I've never cast a spell before," she said nervously.

"Not since losing your memory. But your ability from your previous life should remain all the same."

"_Avis_," she said, moving her wrist sharply to the left. A flock of twittering birds shot from the wand's end.

The sun might have dawned across her face. She looked so delighted that Riddle felt almost revolted.

"Something a little more complex, now," he said. "Face me."

He allowed her a moment to think on the defensive spells she had read about. After three seconds, he cast a stunning spell and she a shield charm.

The twin beams met and, to Riddle's shock, connected. His wand began to vibrate in his hand. Hermione's eyes were wide as Galleons. Small glowing beads were running the length of the beam of light, moving slowly towards Riddle. A glittering emerald skull with a serpent tongue emerged from the tip of his wand and hung in mid-air, followed by startled screams in the high-pitched voice of Hepzibah Smith.

Priori Incantatem.

Riddle dropped his wand at once, breaking the connection. Hermione was breathless.

"That was… was that Priori Incantatem?" she asked. "Why did that happen?"

"We're married," Riddle surmised. "We aren't meant to engage in duels."

"That… _symbol_ that came out of your wand was the same as the dark marks on the others' arms."

He could see in her eyes that she knew what it meant. She looked sad again.

"Practice alone," said Riddle.

"The children's story I was just reading," she said before he could leave. "_The Warlocks's Hairy Heart_."

Riddle waited.

"The warlock is afraid to be like everyone else, so he decides that to keep himself from falling in love he'll take his heart and hide it in a box. He becomes invulnerable, but when he decides to try to dig out his heart, it's become hairy and monstrous."

"Arrive at your metaphors faster."

"You wouldn't listen to my metaphors if I did. I was just thinking… wondering about the heart and the box. It's not a very elegant image, but most of these tales seem based in some sort of magical foundation. With all the trouble we've been to for this chess piece of yours, I was wondering if the chess piece was meant to be like the box."

Riddle froze. No one, _no one_, ever, had come anywhere close to this secret. His instinct warred with his intellect as he considered whether to strike her down on the spot or feign ignorance. It would be regrettable. She was an asset. She was, in many ways, the least objectionable company of anyone he had met; an oddity considering her background. She was given to provoking him, but provocation could sometimes give rise to invention.

"That's right, isn't it?" Hermione went on. "It's some sort of magic to make you stronger?"

He needed her at least until the Alchemist was done. He did not have to act until then.

"You think I want to cut my own heart out and put it in a chess piece?" Riddle said.

"Not your heart, obviously, not really…" Hermione frowned. "I don't _know_."

"Guesswork is the same as nonsense."

"But supposing I was right. That sort of magic—_dark_ magic—would take a lot out of a person."

He did not have to decide anything until the Alchemist finished. He could keep her at least until then.

"Is that why I found you half dead in the fireplace last year?" Hermione insisted. "Have you done it before?"

"Enough." Riddle struck her silent with a slash of his wand. But with her own wand, Hermione undid the spell at once.

"You ought to know," she said, "that whatever in magic can be done can be undone. The only thing that's ever final is death. You know it, because you've been searching for a way to restore my memories for years. Anything you've put in a box can be restored too. It's never too late."

"Be quiet." Riddle strode up to her and snatched Rowle's wand from her hand. "_Quiet._"

"I could help you," she said. "You don't have to be afraid."

He wanted to silence her in the strangest of ways, by biting her words away from her lips. He wanted her to fight back. He wanted to know how her voice would sound if for a moment she was neither fearful nor sad but something else instead. And she had not moved. On impulse he took

(_Tom takes the train out of Hogsmeade station for Easter holiday in his seventh year, something he's never done before, and visits the Gaunt shack again, which is as hateful and ugly a place vacant as it is occupied, and he sets it ablaze_—)

her face and moved it this way and that to see its angles change in the light from the evening sun. She did not flinch away. Her arms rested at her sides. She had ceased to draw breath. They came closer together, it seemed, without having moved

(_Tom moves through the village casting enchantments to distract the Muggles, then starts in on the shack, small flames at first, watching the wooden chairs and table blacken_—)

at all. Riddle heaved a breath that was like plunging from a cliff and tangled them together

(_All together the windowpanes shatter from the rising heat and Tom is not nearly finished, fire spreads from his wand to the moth-eaten curtains, the splintered cabinets, everywhere smoke blooms_—)

on the bed of leaves and earth, feeling the contours of her and pulling

(_Tom pulls some of the wreck apart with his own two hands, though he has a wand with him, he tears his palms to ribbons scratching at the walls until they are all consumed by fire and he steps outside onto the dirt path to watch as the whole shack trembles on its foundations_—)

with his fingers and teeth and

(_And with a blast like thunder the shack crumbles, emitting a blaze taller than the forest behind it_—)

breathing in time with her until they were both very tired, sitting side by side among the roots and grass in the gathering dark.

"I suppose you're happy," said Riddle. "This was what you wanted."

Hermione was silent.

Riddle smoothed down the shoulders of his robes. "Ever since the day I took you to meet the Alchemist…"

"Let's go back indoors," she suggested. Then her eyes fell on something to Riddle's left. "It must have fallen from your pocket," she said, picking up his chess piece.

The piece was enchanted, and in no danger whatsoever of being lost. Still, Riddle snatched it up and stowed it away.

"You never did tell me," said Hermione. "Why did you steal the white King, and not the black?"

"Is there a reason the black should have suited me better?"

She arched an eyebrow. "Of course there is."

She seemed to be expecting a particular answer. Her brow furrowed as she waited. Riddle could not guess what she wished to hear.

"White moves first," he said, standing to leave.

* * *

III

_SHE__ loves me all that she can,  
And her ways to my ways resign;  
But she was not made for any man,  
And she never will be all mine._

_**May 1st, 1948**_

The Alchemist hissed.

Abruptly, a figure appeared in mid-air over the cauldron with a faint _pop_.

"You," said Riddle.

"_Little cauldron, bubble, gargle!  
Potion, help me solve the riddle!_"

"Peeves. What are you doing here?"

"Peevesy is here to collect!" said the Poltergeist in a song-song voice. He hung upside-down to blow a raspberry, twirling his cane.

Riddle turned to the Alchemist. "What is the meaning of this?"

"I deal in Alchemy, noblest of magical arts, nothing more or less," said the Alchemist. "I have told you this."

Riddle had heard enough. He drew his wand, resting the point over the Alchemist's heart.

"Explain," he commanded.

But there was an unnatural choking sound behind him, and Hermione's legs gave way. She fell to the floor.

"What's happened to you?" asked Riddle.

"I—I don't know." Hermione clutched at her throat. The color was draining from her face. "I don't feel quite…"

"The elixir," said the Alchemist, motioning to the heavy fumes filling the dungeon. "It is marking the end of her time."

Riddle's mind raced. He clenched his fingers around his wand for one heartbeat, two, three… and he had it.

"Abraxas," he and Hermione said at the same moment.

"He knew the time and location of our first meeting with the Alchemist, and he doesn't like you spending time with me," she added. She looked to the Alchemist. "Did he pay you off?"

"The pale boy." The Alchemist nodded. "I have little gold, and he has much. It is ironic, no? The boy said to brew an elixir that would dispatch the girl. This is a darker kind of Alchemy. As with all things, I did the work I was asked for the craft, though I was undoing my own creation."

But Riddle was already racing ahead. "The man in the chapel. He didn't only marry us, did he?"

The Alchemist nodded. "Married you, yes. And cursed the girl."

"I've seen no sign of a curse about her."

"It is a special kind of curse: she has been bound. To you. To ensure against an escape. She is needed here and now."

"No." Riddle raised his wand again. "Abraxas has the spite necessary for this sort of plan, but he hasn't got the brains to pull it all together without my knowledge."

Hermione coughed and laid her head against her arms on the floor.

"Dumbledore," she murmured. "Dumbledore must have been involved. He was looking for me after all."

Blood thundered through Riddle's brains. She was right.

Peeves swooped down and rapped Hermione over the head with his cane. She fell unconscious at once.

"_Enough!_" Riddle aimed a freezing curse at the Poltergeist which missed narrowly. "What is going to happen to her? Where is the antidote?"

"There is no antidote," said the Alchemist. "She is expiring."

Peeves cackled. "Poor little lost girly, shan't be lost for much longer!"

Riddle stood immobile. Something seemed to be imploding inside him at the sight of Hermione's limp form. This was a shortcut. He had meant to dispose of her after the Alchemist was finished. Still, he had not expected to feel quite so reluctant about it. He looked away from her.

First, he would get to the bottom of the treachery afoot. Then, he would kill the Alchemist, and anyone else who had colluded with him.

"_Colloportus_," he said, sealing the exit.

"_Late, late, later, strikes the clock,  
The hour too late, the girly's lost!_"

Peeves executed a complicated pirouette, scooping Hermione into his arms. Her head lolled back limply. Riddle thought she was turning grey.

"What have you done to her?" he hissed.

"Peevesy asked and Peevesy got. The Alchemist built a little girly doll, but now the doll's all gone to rot…"

"Put her down."

"Look at her," said the Alchemist. "She is gone."

Hermione's form seemed to be shrinking. It was dissolving into nothing.

"_Crucio!_" Riddle cried.

The Alchemist collapsed into a fit of screams.

After a moment, Riddle collapsed too, and the world blinkered into darkness.

* * *

Riddle opened his eyes.

He was nowhere. All around him stretched nothing. A surface like a ground rested beneath his feet, bone-white as the something that resembled a sky above.

He was naked. The moment he thought it, robes presented themselves, folded on the ground some distance away. Riddle collected them and put them on. He ought to have been uneasy about it, but contentment enveloped him. It seemed impossible to feel anything else here.

As if in response to his thoughts, pain wracked through him. Riddle looked down at his arms and saw that his skin looked freshly blistered, as though he had been set on fire. It hurt ferociously.

"That'll be the one Horcrux."

Riddle whipped around at the sound of Hermione's voice. As she came into view, features of the landscape seemed to materialize behind her. Riddle saw distant white arches and something like an elongated table far ahead.

"It gets a lot worse when you have seven of them," Hermione added. She looked unblemished.

"Hermione."

"Tom?"

"We're dead, are we?"

"Yes… and no." She smiled. "Where would you say we are?"

Riddle looked around. "It resembles the Great Hall."

"Hmm. I should have thought so. Hogwarts was the only place you ever felt at home."

"What would you know about—"

"Everything," she interrupted him. "I know everything about you. About your parents and grandparents and the cave by the sea and your ancestor Salazar and the Chamber of Secrets…"

More and more, their surroundings resembled the Great Hall. Riddle tried to muster anger, but felt only a faint interest.

"So you have your memories back," he said.

Hermione nodded.

"All this is known about me, in the future?"

"So you did know where I was from, all this time."

"No. I suspected."

A bench materialized for Hermione to sit upon.

"I know all this about you in the future, but I'm one of the few who do," she told him. "Because I helped to kill you."

"But we're dead now," Riddle pointed out.

"We could be. Magic is often a matter of choice."

"So we can go back to living?" Riddle found that he could push aside the pain and devote much of his attention to this intriguing possibility.

By way of answer, Hermione held up the white King between her thumb and forefinger. She must have taken it from the Alchemist's desk in the commotion.

"This doesn't become one of your Horcruxes," she said. "That would have been one too many. Merlin's enchantments on it are fearful. It would have been impossible to dispatch. The snake was much easier."

"And?"

"And so you have only one Horcrux for now. The diary. Half of you is with that diary, and the other half is here. If you wanted, you could come with me. You would feel it very badly, the two parts of your soul being split. I once told Harry that the pain of repairing a damaged soul can destroy you. But afterwards, you could come with me. We could move on."

"Why on earth would you ask me to do that?"

"Because I want to help you. Because I'm your friend."

Riddle's mouth twisted.

"You think you've never had a friend, or wanted one." Hermione said it with a laugh, as though he were a child. "Dumbledore thought so, too."

"Dumbledore." The name stirred something in Riddle's memory.

"Ah. I really ought to have seen it coming. Dumbledore. He would have known it was dangerous for me to stay here too long. He helped things along. And Dumbledore would understand the sway you have over Abraxas better than you'd think."

"He helped Abraxas have you killed."

"Not killed, no," said Hermione. "You heard the Alchemist. I was never meant to be here. Peeves didn't bring me here—."

"Peeves?"

"I told you. At Grimmauld place, remember? Poltergeists are the agents of chaos, their magic isn't like our magic. The Muggles have a different name for it: they call it a paradox. Something that isn't supposed to happen. A place like Hogwarts is bound to create a few of them. Peeves is there to keep them in check. He feeds on them and keeps them from getting out of hand. It's a paradox that I came to be here at all, to stop you from making this Horcrux. If I hadn't been brought back to do it, I mightn't have been alive in the future to come back in the first place. But Peeves didn't take all of me back, not _really_. It's impossible to move a body half a century through time. He pulled the medal from my neck and brought my mind with it, my spirit, all that. He asked the Alchemist to build a copy of me here, a sort of doll to put me in. The Alchemist did excellent work. Almost perfect, in fact, except for a few bumps and bruises. But I suppose it was never going to last all that long. My body is still there, in the place where I'm from.

"Where you're from."

She looked up at the ceiling, which was broader than the enchanted sky of the Great Hall, but otherwise identical.

"I'm from right here," she said. "Precisely fifty years from now, to the day, I stood in the Great Hall after you'd destroyed it, and received an Order of Merlin, First Class, for helping to kill you. The cup, that was the one I did. Peeves got a hold of me in the middle of the ceremony, and the next thing I knew, he'd sent me to your time."

"I would never destroy any part of Hogwarts."

"What you would never do now is not the same as what you would never do then, with your soul in eight pieces. The intentions of a certain kind of magic are not always the same as the intentions of the person who casts it."

"_Eight_ pieces?"

"You're going to make so many mistakes, Tom."

He was beginning to hurt deep under his skin, far worse than before. It was an ache that radiated out from his chest at the sound of Hermione's voice.

"It's important that you make them, of course, otherwise we could never take you down. It's like a sort of trap."

"But now that you've told me, I'm not going to make them," said Riddle.

Hermione looked sad.

"I'm afraid you are. Because when I leave, I'll be taking every trace of myself along with me. I told you that magic is about choice. I could decide to go back with you. The spell that married us also bonded us. That's why you're here in this in-between place with me, right now. I could let you bring me back, and live, and inhabit another doll of dust and clay. If I choose to move on instead, I'll only be a story to you. Tom Riddle and friend. You won't really know my face or my name, and none of it will matter. I was never really here."

"No. You'll come back with me."

"And what? Serve you, my Lord?"

Riddle could feel the blisters spreading across his skin. His throat was parched, his veins on fire.

"Yes."

"I couldn't do that any more than you could leave everything behind and come with me, to move on to whatever comes next."

"Then we're at an impasse."

"No. We're at a crossroads." She stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek. The chess piece was still in her hand. "Goodbye, Tom."

"Where are you going?"

She smiled. "I don't know."

Riddle watched her go. She seemed to walk a very long distance in a very short time, until she was no longer visible. It did not cross his mind to follow her. Instead, he remained exactly where he was.

He accepted none of it. How would it be if he neither went on nor went back? How would it be if he refused to abide by the Alchemist's plan and simply stayed here until the rules were altered?

No sooner had he thought it than fog began to descend all around him, blurring the edges of the Hall. Riddle's eyelids felt very heavy. He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, he was in the Alchemist's dungeon.

He was alone.

_**May 2nd, 1948**_

Riddle stood in his bedroom, fighting nausea and an overwhelming sense of unease. It ate away at him. His skin felt raw and burned, though he was unhurt. He had a definite sense of having been swindled, somehow. The thing to do next was to discover the responsible parties and exact retribution.

"My Lord?" Abraxas knocked and, receiving no answer, stepped inside the room. "Are you still unwell?"

The answer was unclear. Riddle threw his cloak on the bed. He had been out, but had accomplished little. He felt a thirst for action. Perhaps the time had come to depart for Albania. He had secured the locket, the cup, the ring. Another treasure was past due. Grimmauld was beginning to grow stifling.

"The Alchemist…" Abraxas began, approaching to hang Riddle's cloak up on a hook.

"The Alchemist was a dead end," said Riddle, waving a dismissive hand. He did not wish to speak about this. Abraxas did not seem like the one to confide in.

"He could not conjure the child for you?"

The child? Riddle frowned. Abraxas looked uncharacteristically subdued, as though he expected a punishment.

"No," he said vaguely. "He could not conjure the child."

Abraxas placed a hand against Riddle's chest. "One day, my Lord, I will have sons, and grandsons, and all will be pledged to you. All yours for the taking."

"Yes. That will be all." Riddle turned away.

Abraxas looked destitute. He left, with many backwards glances. When he had gone, Riddle cast a number of numbing spells to quiet the ache in his limbs. When this did not suffice, he summoned an elf with a tray of wine and drank several goblets. At last he felt that he could not remain in the house. It was really the house that was stifling him.

He went into the gardens. A book lay on a bench by a pear tree. It was a children's tale, _The Warlock's Hairy Heart_. Riddle picked it up.

He went out into London, Apparating to Knockturn Alley. Finding the barroom above Croak & Ludwell's nearly deserted, he seated himself at a corner table there. This place was where he had met with Burke in the summer after his seventh year at Hogwarts, to coerce or bewitch a job from the man. Dumbledore had already gotten to him, he had found, recommending a more seasoned partner. Riddle had resorted to the Imperius curse, in the end. It hardly soothed him to relive it now. Indeed, a change of scenery was what he needed. He would go in the morning.

"What luck to come across a familiar face at this hour."

Riddle looked up. Dumbledore stood before him, pulling out a chair.

"Dumbledore. I hesitate to think of this as your usual locale." In fact, with school in session, it was nearly as far out of the way as it was possible for Dumbledore to go.

"Having received some excellent news, I found myself in search of a lively atmosphere to celebrate," Dumbledore replied.

"Shall I call for a drink?"

"Oh, I shouldn't think so. I don't intend to stay long. Though it is curious to see you, Tom, after all this time. You are looking pale."

Riddle scraped his glass across the table and took a drink. "You received some excellent news, you say?"

"Indeed. A friend from very far away, who taught me much, has returned home safely."

"And written at once to assure you of their arrival? How touching."

"No, this news was brought to me by Peeves," said Dumbledore solemnly.

Riddle had forgotten how baiting he found the old man's smug eccentricity. He smiled.

"You speak in enigmas, Dumbledore."

"One often finds oneself speaking unintelligibly, when one's audience is indisposed to hear the truth."

Riddle raised an eyebrow. "You do not like me, Professor. That, we can agree, is your right. But I wonder you took the trouble of coming all the way here from Hogwarts to remind me of it."

"You mistake me, Tom. I speak of general, not particular misunderstandings. It seems I have caught you in a time of reflection. I must apologize for interrupting your thoughts."

"Reflection?"

Dumbledore reached across the table and picked up the copy of _The Warlock's Hairy Heart_.

The book had escaped Riddle's notice. He had not realized that he had brought it with him.

"We have much to learn from children's tales," said Dumbledore gravely.

"It is a worthless picture book." Riddle shrugged. "Keep it, if it pleases you."

"A little appreciation for things small and unworthy would do you a great deal of good, Tom. I do wish you could see it."

Riddle stood, dropping a number of sickles on the table for the drink.

"Until we meet again, Dumbledore," he said, making to leave.

"Perhaps. Enjoy your book, Tom."

Riddle looked down, somewhat alarmed. He had intended to leave the book on the table, but instead had taken it with him. He held it now in an iron grip.

Well, it was his book. Why should Dumbledore have it?

Riddle left. Stowing the book safely in his pocket, he walked in the dusk, and Disapparated.


End file.
